21 Quotes & Sayings By Neena Verma

Neena Verma is a best-selling author of fiction, non-fiction, and poetry. A dancer, educator, and cancer survivor, she teaches contemporary dance in NYC. A mother of three, she divides her time between teaching at NYU and raising her sons. She has written books for young adults, including "Scribbling on the Wall," a memoir of her experience with cancer, published by Random House/Scholastic in 2003 Read more

She is also the author of "The Artistic Journey," a guide for artists of all levels, published by Harper Collins in 2011.

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Learn to accept the inevitability of difference between the self-view & others' image of us. Be willing to take this as an opportunity to grow consciousness. Have clarity to know when others' view is projection of their own shadow. Summon courage to endure growth pains. Life is simple. Neena Verma
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GriefYou plunge one in many emotions Betrayal, Despair, Depression, Fear, AngerGriefYou are more difficult to face than DeathGriefPlease let my faith stay stronger than you Grief I so wish you eventually lose out to love( Page 58) Neena Verma
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Letting myself fall wasn't easy. It wasn't hard either. It was a calling that I had to honour. I did honour. I took a plunge into my dark abyss. I faced my grief, my fear, my sadness, my loneliness, my anguish, myself. (Page 78) Neena Verma
Appreciate, Let purpose inspire action, Learn with humility, Go beyond...
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Appreciate, Let purpose inspire action, Learn with humility, Go beyond .. all in Here & Now. Neena Verma
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Nature does not abandon us. Rather, it helps us in accepting our loss, grief and pain. It stays with us, even cries with us. It gifts us openings, may be more than once, to heal, transcend and re-emerge. (Page xii) Neena Verma
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There are words like ‘orphan’, ‘widow’ and ‘widower’ in all languages. But there is no word in any language to describe a parent who loses a child. How does one describe the pain of ‘ultimate bereavement’! (Page 50) Neena Verma
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Twilight. ..Say, who you are ! ! The dusk before the night Or the dawn before the light( Page 73) Neena Verma
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One is in 'Waiting'Even after it's over Grief comes to stay Never up for closure... There is no escape ever One is always yearning Grief envelops those Left behind in 'waiting'...‘Staying stuck’ in pain Hiding deep in the heart' Let go' ! Yes, but how To make a new start... One has to live in the Dark blind ‘Black-hole’Until Light would grace Rekindling a 'Whole'(Page 49) Neena Verma
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Twilight, the only time of the day when the light and dark meet and become one. The bright powerful light of the day, calmly surrenders before the engulfing duskiness of the night. And the dense whelming darkness of the night yields before the surreal dawning saffron of the morning. The only two moments of the day that absolve the difference between ‘dark and light’. (Page 71) Neena Verma
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We are generally not programmed to imagine death, to handle death, to absorb grief, at least not in the immediacy of things, definitely not when the ‘thing’ has happened to another person. Neena Verma
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The crumbling under the ‘cold corpse’ The deadness of ‘mortal separation’ The moaning wails of ‘mourning’The push to ‘perform rituals’ The spectacle of ‘sorrow’The goriness of ‘grief’AndThe ‘mercilessness’ of the ‘merciful’Who knows … ‘what’ and ‘why’ Who would ever want to know( Page 34) Neena Verma
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Twilight …Not just a metaphor The metaphor of the ‘spirit’The confluence of life and death The celestial dance of existential and essential( Page 75) Neena Verma
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Bereavement, despair, ache, yearning happen to all. We all bear the pain of grief. We all take them in our own ways. And we are all blessed with the grace to transcend. (Page xii) Neena Verma
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Lament invoked love. Woe invoked wonder. Grief invoked grace. Cry invoked celebration.( Page 80) Neena Verma
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The Source …Who are YouWhere lay your path Why be on your journey... The Source …Your marvel amazes Your mystique invokes Your magnificence entrances( Page 88) Neena Verma
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The morning’s splendour is conceived in the dark womb of night. A truth … we all know and believe. Yet a truth, that is most difficult to live and endure when one is in that dark womb. Alive and breathing … but inert, vulnerable, and ‘in waiting’. Witnessing but not conscious, wakeful but not awake. (Page 2) Neena Verma
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Forgetting is not forgetting Forgetting is ‘Letting things pass’ When Existence opens up to EssenceAnd rises above and beyond The path of Transcendence opens Love goes beyond DeathThe body disappears The person lives In LoveAnd in this LoveRemembrance is born( Page 91) Neena Verma
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ParentNothing … No One Prepares a parent to raise the child Nothing … No One Can ever prepare a parent to bear the loss of child Neena Verma
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I came to understand the most intriguing irony of life, that the most intimate partner of life is death. (Page 94) Neena Verma
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Death It does not happen to the dead alone Those left behind, die too In parts that would never heal and come back to life( Page 14) Neena Verma